QUIRKY WORLD ... A daily look at some of the world’s stranger stories
A criminal has been jailed following a string of burglaries after a Find My iPhone app was used by police to help finally capture him.
Ion-Liviu Radita, 36, stole an iPad during one of 11 break-ins committed during a three-week crime spree in Kent.
But unknown to him, the Apple device featured an app which enabled police to track it down to one of several properties in Eynsford Rd, Ilford, Essex.
Outside one of the homes was a red Nissan Primera which detectives were able to prove was used to travel to Kent at the exact time of the burglaries.
Radita, a Romanian, was convicted of conspiracy to commit burglary by a jury at Maidstone Crown Court this week and was jailed for seven years, Kent Police said.
It’s not often that a swap site transaction results in the evacuation of an apartment house.
But then again, how often is one of the objects being traded a live tank shell?
Austrian state broadcaster ORF says the shell was on offer as a dummy.
It says police had to clear a Vienna apartment house of its residents and put up road blocks after establishing that it was in fact a fully functioning explosive.
The report said police were called to examine the shell by its new owner shortly after she had exchanged two bottles of wine and a picture frame for it on an online swap site.
ORF said the shell’s previous owner had used it as a door stopper.
The report says both women face unspecified criminal charges.
A fear of creepy-crawlies is most likely to give children sleepless nights, according to a survey about what scares them the most.
Researchers found a quarter of children said they were scared by spiders and bugs, with a similar amount (23%) admitting to a fear of the dark.
Other worries highlighted in the survey of 2,000 parents, commissioned by Sky Movies to mark the launch of its television special Toy Story of Terror, included being bullied (22%), ghosts (20%), and doing badly at school (14%).
It is usually thought of as an all-American treat — but the first recipe for the doughnut is believed to have been written down in Hertford, it is reported.
The Hertfordshire Record Society, which publishes a volume of records every year, has released The Receipt Book of Baroness Elizabeth Dimsdale c1800, which include one for ’dow nuts’ by a Mrs Fordham, according to the Hertfordshire Mercury. Baroness Dimsdale lived in Hertford.
The collection was given to the Hertfordshire Record Society by one of the family’s descendants, Robert Dimsdale, who lives in Switzerland, and society secretary Heather Falvey put it into a book, the Mercury said.
Despite Oklahoma’s ban on same-sex marriage, a gay couple will be legally married in the state thanks to one man’s bloodline.
Darren Black Bear is a member of the Oklahoma-based Cheyenne Arapaho, one of the few Native American tribes that allow same-sex marriage. He plans to marry his partner of nine years, Jason Pickel.
Like gay couples who marry legally in other states, they will not be awarded state benefits given to married couples in Oklahoma, but they will qualify for federal marriage benefits.
All federally recognised tribes can approve laws for their land and members. The Cheyenne Arapaho’s code regarding marriage does not specifically address gender, referring to the parties simply as “Indians”.
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